Zongamin

I crawled into my faded, cornflower blue leisure suit (the one with "1977" scrawled in peeling electrical\n\ tape on ...

I crawled into my faded, cornflower blue leisure suit (the one with "1977" scrawled in peeling electrical tape on the back) and made my way to the latest most-hyped club my town had to offer: Club Zongamin. My friends Tigersushi and BB Couk had tipped me off, saying that the place was giving the world something to dance to unlike anything heard since Arthur Russell's notorious Dinosaur L creations in the early 80s-- back when disco and dance were becoming the new punk.

The wait to get in was long; I had nothing better to do than listen to the odd sounds emanating from the open doors. Some girl wearing pink Saran wrap and a belt-buckle with Elvis Presley's face on it mentioned how much she liked the track that was currently playing, "Make Love Not War". She was in the process of telling me how she appreciated it a lot more than the original Arrows version, when the music abruptly halted, cutting short the Dick Dale-influenced guitar and Morricone-styled choral arrangements. Suddenly, the DJ switched to a more direct dance beat led by a fuzzy bass and hi-hat. The guy behind me sporting a faux-hawk and twinkle in his eye was attempting to make time with the girl to my left, who was hardly impressed by his knowledge of the track-- "Serious Trouble"-- and how he had the original "twelve" long before 2 Many DJs dropped it on their As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2 mix a year earlier.

Finally inside the club, I boogied my way to the middle of the dancefloor just as the club owner, Susumu Mukai, halted the melee momentarily to allow house turntablist J33\xBD to set up his deck. Mukai announced the arrival of "Street Surgery 2" with the atonal manipulation of his fabricated bass, which slowly evolved into an awkward-yet-interesting, Indian-inspired backwards phrase before juxtaposing with a lower register polka-dance bassline. All of this inevitably fell upon the cutting room floor, as J33\xBD interjected breaks between notes of the main melody for the remainder of the song.

Other tracks held my attention throughout the course of the night-- the swirling ecstasy-fueled atmosphere of "Spiral", the Esquivel-esque bachelor-pad-music of "J. Shivers Theme" (complete with whistling), and the alternately funky/frightening "Tunnel Music"-- but in time the scene ended, and I made my way back to my apartment, exhausted and badly in need of a shower.

When I awoke the next morning, groggy (and, yes, smelly), I had the acute sensation of buyer's remorse. Suddenly, with the perspective of a new day, I remembered moments from the previous night's mix that had mercifully been ignored at the time. The weak industrial experimentation of "Double Dostiev" was a slap in the face to every kid that had been at the club sporting their Throbbing Gristle t-shirt, and the grossly suspenseful "Mummies", with its repeating four notes and distant horror-show "thuds", led to nothing more than the abrupt flood of the house lights signaling everyone to leave-- a severe disappointment in what was otherwise a potentially strong track. The remainder of the experience was inexplicably tinged with the dark odor of commercial viability. Tracks such as "Whiplash" and "Trespasser" would sound better, perhaps, were it not for the distinct future-sound of Nissans and Hondas whisking across isolated mountain roads, fields of fog, and humorous common life situations.

Despite these misgivings, though, I wouldn't ask for a refund on the experience. The club showed a lot of potential that evening, and though it's a fair criticism to say the music functioned more as a collection of singles than as a cohesive mix, there's still some merit there. The next time I get that certain urge to strut, I'll make my way back to those pyramid-shaped black-and-white doors and slip into the groove, because, while it's doubtful I'll want to visit every night, it would be blatantly dishonest to say I'd never return to Zongamin.